


Just One More Time

by TrashyInferno



Series: stand tall AU [1]
Category: Julie and The Phantoms (TV)
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-09-16
Updated: 2020-09-16
Packaged: 2021-03-06 23:22:04
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,232
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26487106
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/TrashyInferno/pseuds/TrashyInferno
Summary: Post "Nothing to Lose" from Luke's perspective.------------“Well boys?” Caleb said, his hands spread, “Whaddya say?”Another shock rippled through Luke, and he fell to his knees, grunting in pain.No. He should say no.
Relationships: Julie Molina & Luke Patterson
Series: stand tall AU [1]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1967437
Comments: 30
Kudos: 347





	Just One More Time

**Author's Note:**

> Um... Bit of Music Majory nerd stuff in here, but these guys are musicians... :)

“Well boys?” Caleb said, his hands spread, “Whaddya say?”

Another shock rippled through Luke, and he fell to his knees, grunting in pain.

No. He should say no.

He looked up and caught Reggie’s eyes. Reggie’s mouth was screwed in a mask of pain; his eyes were dull even under Caleb’s stage lights.

**_You’re like me, born to perform your music in front of sold out crowds._ **

Alex made a choking sound from above them. Luke frantically sought out his band mate. Alex was curled over his drum set, his entire body tense. Luke couldn’t make out Alex’s expression, but he knew it wasn’t the happy go lucky drummer’s usual smile.

**_It is all your dreams come true. Forever._ **

_Would all eternity with Caleb really be that bad?_ something traitorous in him whispered.

_**We’d love to come back.** _

“Perhaps you need an encore?” Caleb said at their silence. “Ladies?”

The music swelled, and Luke found his hands playing his guitar once again as Caleb launched into the chorus of his song.

“You got nothing to lose, boys!”

**_No one really knows what’s waiting on the other side._ **

“Lose ooh ooo!”

_**Isn’t it nice that you’re all here together?** _

_Is this really that bad?_ the little voice asked. _You get to play for all eternity. With them! With Alex and Reggie._

**_Everything you want, including Willie, is here._ **

He looked over at Reggie rocking away on his guitar, but Reggie’s eyes were still dull. Luke’s gut twisted. Those eyes… they didn’t belong on Reggie. Not when he was making music.

His gaze swiveled to Alex. The drummer was playing as well as ever, but his movements were choppy and robotic. Alex had always said that drumming was about using your emotions to make sound. This was just pure technique and muscle memory.

There was the problem. This, this playing with Caleb, it wasn’t making music. This was playing music, sure. But it wasn’t making it. Making music involved emotions. It was the bond and trust that the band had forged coming out through song.

**You don’t know if playing the Orpheum is really your unfinished business. Do you really have time to make that mistake?**

This was… soulless. Wrong. This wasn’t what he wanted.

_Don’t blink. No, I don’t want to miss it…_

Julie? Luke tried to focus his hearing but all he heard were the chords to Caleb’s song. He thought he’d heard… He caught Alex’s eyes again. They were bright, and a bright smile was on his face.

Alex nodded at Luke and kept playing, but Luke could hear him subtly begin to hit on the Bass Drum pedal in the soft beat of Stand Tall, just like they’d practiced yesterday.

_Light a fire in my eyes…_

Luke glanced at Reggie, whose face was screwed up in concentration. He was still playing to Caleb’s tune, but every once in a while, he would shift into a secondary chord that didn’t quite fit the piece.

But it fit Stand Tall.

 _I’m going out of my mind_.

Luke focused on Caleb. Had the old ghost noticed anything?

Caleb sang on, playing to his audience. “You got nothing to lose, boys.” He danced around the stage, his attention not centered on the guys like it had been the last time. “Lose…”

_I gotta keep on dreaming ‘cause I gotta catch that feeling…_

Luke tried his hardest to hold onto the snippet of the song, but it felt like he was listening to a radio at full blast in one room and another, better, radio was playing somewhere on the other side of the house. No matter how much he wandered around, listening for that radio, he could still hear the bad one. He wished he could follow them. He wished he could join them and make music. Maybe Caleb’s spell was more focused on him than the others. Maybe that was why he couldn’t hear it as well.

Alex and Reggie weren’t being so subtle anymore. Luke felt a surge of pride as the two of them began to sink into Julie’s performance completely. Caleb, finally noticing that something was wrong with his music, gestured to his ghost friends to stop. The music slowed to an end, but Alex and Reggie kept playing.

Even with Caleb’s music gone, Luke still couldn’t hear Julie. It was like his ears were popping from pressure, and he couldn’t hear Julie over the buildup in his ears.

“What do you think you’re doing?” Caleb hissed, marching in Reggie’s direction. “You’re ruining the performance.”

The crowd gasped as Alex vanished into thin air. Reggie smirked and poofed away just before Caleb reached him.

Caleb halted and whirled on Luke. “What happened? Where are they?”

Luke couldn’t bring himself to answer. He was too busy reaching blindly for Julie and her song.

_Hands down, can’t let myself forget it, no._

Caleb’s angry face twisted into a sneer. “Well, you’re not going with them, boy,” he said menacingly. He pointed at Luke, and Luke felt pain blossom in his chest. Unlike the other times Caleb’s magic had hurt him, the pain lasted for more than just a few seconds.

The pain slowly faded, and Luke could feel his body twitching on the ground. His throat felt raw, like he’d been screaming.

Had he been screaming?

“Let’s do that again.”

The pain returned worse than before.

_Keep holding on, never look back._

Luke grasped onto the lyrics like a lifeline. He tried to focus on the chords; he tried to get away from the pain.

”And it’s one, two, three, four times…”

He appeared in front of a crowd, Julie’s song loud and proud in his ears. He strummed at his guitar furiously, trying to get into the song… A Minor chord.

_that I’ll try for one more night._

And then he was back on Caleb’s stage, writhing on the ground. Julie! He wanted to be there. He visualized himself there, at the Orpheum, playing with her and the others. He pleaded to whatever was out there - to whatever brought him and the band back - to send him back. Send him back to Julie.

“Light a fire in my eyes…”

He was playing with them, his guitar flickering in and out of his hands. A Major, dominant chord. He looked at Julie apologetically as he felt his form flicker in and out of existence. Her desperate eyes met his, and he knew that this was the moment. This was his line. The part where he came in and the song became theirs.

What was the next chord? What was it?

**_Do you really have time to make that mistake?_ **

Tonic! D Major. “I’m going out of my mind!” Getting the words out was hard, because yes, he felt like he was going out of his mind hopping back and forth between Caleb and Julie. But the moment he did, it got so much easier. He’d torn through the veil separating him from the others, and the chords flowed through him. He had the music again.

He had all the time in the world to make mistakes if it meant he could play with Julie just one last time.

Dominant. Submediant. Tonic. “Whatever happens, even if I’m the last standing, I’ma stand tall. I’ma stand tall.”

He sang it. He believed it.

And for the first time in days, he felt no pain.

**Author's Note:**

> Julie and the Phantoms got me back into writing. This show is just... Agh. So good.
> 
> I was doing a rewatch and watched the scenes leading up to that hella emotional finale, and I found myself really watching the boys' faces throughout all of it. It's so interesting that throughout Nothing to Lose, the boys look either defiant or confused - like Caleb is controlling them, the jerk.
> 
> And then there was the flickering and the uncertainty at the Orpheum and I wondered: is this a side effect of Caleb's mark or is this something else? I went with something else :). A little drama for everyone.


End file.
